August

the purpose of a hearth in august is to provide a cool place for dogs to lie...

i got my first job when i was 14 years old, shelving books at the public library every day after school and for four hours on saturdays. i got paid 75 cents an hour; for some reason, the city was not obligated to pay minimum wage. i was a good saver, though, and with the money i earned i was able to quit wearing hand-me-downs from my older sisters kristin, nancy and holly (all of whom were either taller or bigger-boned than i) and buy my own clothes.

and except for a couple of brief fellowships and a six-month stint to write a book, i have been working ever since. this year, i decided to take a break. so i asked my boss if i could take four weeks off in august, unpaid, and she said yes.

if she had known how unusually newsy august was going to be--with the bridge collapse, the huge storms, and incredible floods--she might have said no. but she was very good and didn't call me back even though i suspect the newsroom has been short-handed.

so since august 6, i have been off work, and it has been wonderful. it took a while to get used to the rhythm of being unscheduled, and to be honest i'm not entirely sure that i have it mastered even yet. i get up at 5:30, as always, and read the papers with doug and then we walk the dogs. after breakfast doug goes to work, and i start .... writing. i blog, perhaps too much. i email, also too much. i check my work email for important messages, even though i won't be back there until after labor day and none of the messages are really all that important.

but after i have all that out of the way, i start writing my own stuff. i haven't gotten as far as i hoped, but i have made a good start. who knows if it will go anywhere; i won't say any more about it now because i don't want to have to eat my words later. but it has been a joy. i used to write all the time, from the time i was a kid. but in the last few years i have not had the time or the mental energy after working such long and demanding days. or maybe i've just lacked the discipline.

until this month. every day, i write for a couple of hours, and then i eat lunch, and then i read for awhile, and boscoe and i usually end up napping on the front porch for about 20 minutes in the middle of the afternoon (and how i will miss those naps, come september!), and then i write some more, and then i scatter some fish skins to keep boscoe busy, and i leash up riley and we go for a long walk. when doug comes home, at 7 or 7:30, i pour a glass of wine and ask him for news of the outside world.

the writing time has been interrupted a lot, by family visits and mother's birthday and california wedding and out-of-town guests and talking to the food writers. next week will be interrupted again by two planned visits from friends. but most of the time has been my own. i have time to think. i have time to goof off. i have time to concentrate on things i haven't been able to concentrate on in a long time. (and last week, as you know, i had time to clean the house.)

riley lies under the table while i am writing, and rests his head on my feet. sometimes he snores, sweetly. boscoe lies on the fleece pad next to me. they will miss me when i go back to work. i could do this every day for a long, long time. i think i could live like this. but i only have one week left--one more week of getting up and seeing where the day takes me and what my mind will create.

don't you think we should all get a chance to do this? to see how we would spend our time, if we had some?

how would you spend the time?

august has been a snap of the fingers.

august has been the time of my life